Finance committee  I am not aware that this was taken to court.

Finance committee  It is a deduction that would be applied to an individual's income. It would reduce the amounts at the marginal tax rate that the individual would face. That would be the difference from a credit set, let's say, at 15%. If you have a credit at 15%, it reduces the amount you owe, a

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  As officials, we don't have preferences.

Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  There is no definition of “volunteer”, but there is one of emergency service volunteers.

Finance committee  Yes, that is exactly the point on which we base our interpretation. If a benefit has already been granted through an exemption, an individual cannot obtain a deduction.

Finance committee  That wouldn't be for me to judge. We have the Income Tax Act, within which such things could be done, but I understand there are two jurisdictions that have such things. I think they are Nova Scotia and Nunavut, which have recently introduced something that is quite similar to wh

Finance committee  I understand this is the case. So it's narrower than this one. In fact this one is not very well defined. It looks much broader than what they have.

Finance committee  If there is payment involved, then a T4 is necessary, and then the deduction applies against that T4. If there is no amount involved, then the authorities would have to certify the hours, so a form would need to be designed. We would need to work with CRA to define what exactly t

Finance committee  That is not our reading of the situation. With your permission, I will consult lawyers from our department and confirm to you at a future date the position of our department on that point. I don't want to confirm anything right now. I will need to consult people and provide an an

Finance committee  I would very much like to help you, but I am not comfortable confirming that position because it is not consistent with our understanding of the bill to date. With the help of our lawyers, we will be able to verify that quickly and provide you with that information.

Finance committee  Yes, we have determined the costs. Firstly, keep in mind that such estimates are uncertain given the data we receive from Statistics Canada. I do not have any administrative data on the number of people who volunteer their time to emergency services. We use figures that were coll

Finance committee  Yes. For all provinces with a tax collection agreement, this will alter the federal tax base. And for Quebec, assuming that Quebec would follow suit and adjust their own tax system—they would have a choice—the cost would be about $35 million per year.